1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a machine for attaching fasteners such as buttons to a garment, and more particularly to an apparatus for orienting and placing buttons one at a time for attachment to a garment.
2. Prior Art
Machines for attaching buttons to a garment are known in which a button and its mating fastener part, such as a tack, are delivered one at a time from their respective chutes to a working station where a die and a punch coact to join the button and the mating fastener part together in clinched condition with the garment placed therebetween. If the button bears on its front side a design, mark or symbol requiring a specified angular position in which the button is to be mounted on a garment, it is necessary to orient the button in such required direction.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication (Kokai) No. 52-60740, corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,019,666, discloses a button orienting apparatus including a pusher slide slidably received in a guide channel of a guide for pushing a button through the guide channel, and a friction plate having a frictional surface exposed to the guide channel for frictional engagement with a peripheral edge portion of the button head to cause the button to roll on the frictional surface as the button is pushed by the pusher slide in the guide channel. This rolling of the button continues until a tab on the back side of the button is caught by a pair of spaced claws on a locking lever mounted on the pusher slide; the button having thus been oriented in a required direction then slides on the frictional surface of the friction plate. However, this prior apparatus is disadvantageous in that the peripheral edge portion of the button head is subject to abrasions, grazes or other damage as the button head slides on the frictional surface of the friction plate, because the friction plate is normally urged inwardly by springs which are so strong as to cause one of the spaced claws to ride over the tab.